World Map in a Room

World maps can be the active scene in a room, just like a battle map. When they are, everyone sees the same map live — you pan, they pan; you add a pin, they see it; you hide a layer, it disappears for players but stays visible (dimmed) for you.

This page explains how to run a world map session and what’s shared in real time versus what stays private to you as GM.

Starting a world map session

In your room, open the Scenes panel (the LayoutList icon on the world-map toolbar when you’re GM).
Pick a world map scene from the list. The map loads for you and for every player in the room.
If the scene is brand new and has no layers yet, PostRoll seeds a Default layer so you can start dropping pins, paths, and text right away.

What everyone sees

Some things are always visible to every user in the room:

The basemap image (changing basemap versions updates everyone).
Pins, paths, regions, text, parallax overlays, and masks — but only on layers you’ve revealed to players.
Mask overlay opacity and visibility (the atmospheric dark mask on top of the map).
Pings (explained below).
Every user’s cursor position (if their browser tab is active on the map).

What’s private to the GM

Pins marked “GM Only” stay invisible to players until you reveal them.
Unrevealed layers and everything on them (pins, paths, regions, text, parallax) — but you still see them, dimmed, so you can edit in private.
GM notes on pins (any gmNotes / gmDescription fields) never leave the server for player clients.
Your hidden mask shapes — only shapes marked revealed: true reach players.

View modes: Edit, Explore, Guided

The Edit / Explore / Guided tabs at the top-right of the map control what every user in the room can do. The tabs are scene-wide — only you (the GM) can change them, and the switch applies to every user instantly.

Edit — authoring mode. Toolbar is visible; pins, paths, regions, etc. can be created. Players only see the tools you’ve granted them (see Player tool permissions below).
Explore — free navigation for everyone. No toolbar. Each user pans/zooms their own map independently.
Guided — follow-the-GM. Every non-GM user’s viewport is locked to your pan/zoom. Use this for “everyone look at this castle” moments that aren’t meant to be browsed away from.

Players see the tabs but can’t change them — they’re greyed out with a tooltip explaining that only the GM can switch view mode.

Your pan and zoom are broadcast at all times. In Guided mode non-GM users follow automatically; in the other modes they can still see where you are but aren’t pulled along.

Player tool permissions

When the scene is in Edit mode, non-GM users see only the tools you explicitly grant them. Open the Players icon (people silhouette) in the bottom-right viewport controls — it only appears when you’re the GM in a live room — and tick the tools that should be available:

Pin tool
Text tool
Region tool
Path tool
Image tool
Mask tool

All tools are off by default. Changes apply to every non-GM user in the room immediately. The Select, Measure, Ping, and Settings buttons are always visible to everyone.

Bring players here (one-shot fly)

The crosshair icon on the toolbar (GM-only) sends every player’s viewport a one-time “fly here” command. Their maps animate to your exact center and zoom, then they keep whatever they had before — no sticky follow. Useful for “everyone look at this” moments without locking the view. Works in any view mode.

Send ping

The sparkle icon on the toolbar (available to everyone) enables the ping tool. The cursor becomes a crosshair; your next click on the map drops a short amber ripple at that exact spot. The ripple lasts about three seconds and is visible to everyone in the room — yourself included. The tool auto-exits back to Select after the ping fires.

You can also press P to toggle the ping tool from the keyboard. Press P again or Escape to exit without pinging. The shortcut is ignored while you’re typing in a text field.

Revealing pins, layers, and scene elements

Every drawable element starts hidden from players. The GM reveals things explicitly using two mechanisms.

Reveal a whole layer

Open the Layers popover (bottom-right viewport controls):

Green eye next to a layer — visible to players. Every pin/path/region/text/parallax on that layer (minus GM-only pins) appears on player maps.
Grey eye — hidden from players. They see none of its contents.

Toggling the eye is instant. Re-revealing a previously-hidden layer re-sends all its features to player clients.

Reveal a single GM-Only pin

On a pin whose GM Only checkbox is ticked:

Select the pin. The Pin tool panel opens.
Click Reveal to players (eye icon, above Delete Pin).
The button flips to Hide from players. Players now see the pin.

How you know what’s hidden

On the GM’s map, features that are invisible to players render at ~40% opacity:

Pins that are GM-only and not yet revealed.
Pins, paths, regions, and text on a layer whose eye toggle is off.

The layer’s regular visibility checkbox still removes things from your own view too — the dimming is only for “I can see this, players can’t” cases.

Cursors

If another user is active on the map, you see their cursor as a glowing colored dot with their username next to it. The dot fades out after about five seconds of inactivity. Colors come from the Cursor Color setting in the VTT (same setting used in battle maps).

Reconnecting

If your connection drops mid-session, the client reconnects automatically. On reconnect you receive the current state from the server — revealed pins, layer reveals, shared focus, everything — so you never have to refresh.

World Map scenes — building the map before you share it
Rooms & Sessions — creating rooms and inviting players
Worlds — creating world maps outside of live sessions
VTT Scenes — how the battle map scene type works
Sharing — who can access which scenes