Setting up your first scene
A new scene opens as an empty grid. There’s no wrong order to do things in, but there is a short path — and the tabletop will walk you along it.
The starter card
Section titled “The starter card”Open a scene with no map and a small card appears in the middle, offering the four ways a map gets onto a scene:
- Upload a map — an image or a looping video from your machine.
- Browse your basemaps — maps you’ve already uploaded to this world.
- Import a prepared scene — a Universal VTT or Foundry file. Walls and lights come across with it, so a map bought from a mapmaker arrives ready.
- Start on a blank grid — for theatre of the mind, or to draw as you go.
The canvas behind the card stays live, so you can ignore it entirely and start clicking around. Dismiss it and it stays gone for that scene; Scene Control brings it back.
The guided tour
Section titled “The guided tour”The first time you open the tabletop you get a short tour of the toolbar — about six stops as a GM, three as a player. Each stop highlights one control and says what it’s for, and the highlighted button still works while it’s explained, so you can try things as you go.
Skip it whenever you like with Skip or Esc. Next or Enter moves on.
Where the advanced tools went
Section titled “Where the advanced tools went”The toolbar shows the everyday tools and tucks the rest behind More tools: walls, height and 2.5D, effects, difficult terrain and measured templates.
Open it once and it stays open — the tabletop remembers. And if one of those tools is currently active, the section stays open on its own with a dot on the expander, so a tool you’re using is never hidden from you.
Ready for the first session?
Section titled “Ready for the first session?”Open Scene Control and there’s a checklist at the top that fills itself in as you work:
| Check | What it wants |
|---|---|
| Map in place | A basemap, an import, or a deliberate blank grid |
| Grid matched to the map | Open Grid Options and line the grid up, so distances and areas are true |
| At least one token | Something to move |
| Players invited | Somebody besides you in the room |
| Fog decided | Fog painted, or turned off on purpose |
Click any unfinished row and it takes you to the control that finishes it. Once everything passes, the checklist collapses to a tick and gets out of the way.