Foundry Content | Important Update

Hey all!

This post is an update for users of our Foundry content, with some fairly large updates on how we're changing one of our module dependencies.

As you'll know, many of our maps in the Foundry modules contain dynamic elements, which are often referred to as 'token attacher elements' or 'prefabs'. These include things such as:

• Traps that can be dragged onto the map to activate (such as a pit trap in the Redbrand Hideout from our free Phandelver pack)

• Phased battle map triggers (such as the Summoning Ritual map from our deserts theme)

• Full multi-level buildings with roofs (from our Downtown module)

These have all used the Token Attacher module in the past, which allows you to drag an actor from a compendium on to the canvas and it will have tiles, walls, light and sound elements attached to it. Unfortunately, this has come with some drawbacks:

• Token Attacher historically is one of the slowest Foundry modules to be updated after a significant Foundry release, meaning we have been left with the choice of either waiting to update our content, or only updating half of our content.

• Token Attacher relies on Actor compendiums, which in Foundry must have a game system defined (such as Dungeons & Dragons 5e). This means that non 5e systems can't access these actors, which are sometimes important elements.

• Whilst Token Attacher does technically have a system agnostic converter tool to get around this, this has broken recently and the mod developer has been unresponsive about a fix.

With all this in mind, over the last several months we have been looking into, discussing, and implementing a new alternative system.

Baileywiki Mass Edit

We're happy to share that we've partnered with Baileywiki to integrate their new Baileywiki Mass Edit tool, as a replacement for TokenAttacher functionality!

Mass Edit uses prefabs in the same way as before, except now they are stored in the background as journals - meaning that there is no game system dependency like there was in the past. This means that modules are now truly system agnostic with no need for additional scripting, and fewer things to break!

Note: There is a huge amount of functionality to Mass Edit, which Baileywiki covers extensively over on his YouTube channel. We intend to leverage all of these features and keep revisiting our modules adding more Mass Edit functionality, but initially our priority has been to get the prefabs converted and release so that non-5e Patrons stop being impacted.

Going forward, when you have a tmc module loaded that contains prefab elements (or if you have Mass Edit enabled in your own world) you will see this icon on the left of your screen, along with Foundry's other buttons:

This opens the Mass Edit menu, in which you can see different sections, one of which is tiles, which uses the same icon as Foundry:

Here is one of my favourite aspects of this new module. Whereas in the past there was a separate actor compendium for every module containing prefabs, with Mass Edit we have been able to group this. These means that any The MAD Cartographer modules you enable in your world that contain prefabs will all be grouped together in one please for easy access and tidy organisation)

Some general notes on Mass Edit in The MAD Cartographer modules, and our plans going forward:

• Mass Edit prefabs do away with the need for a 'control token'. They can be moved and rotated from anywhere on the tile.

• I am sure you'll notice, as I quickly did, that Mass Edit prefabs are much faster and more responsive when it comes to moving them around a scene.

• Token Attacher has been removed as a dependency from The MAD Cartographer modules containing prefabs. Baileywiki Mass Edit has been added as a dependency to modules containing prefabs.

• Mass Edit also has the infrastructure to easily include asset libraries. We are already discussing and preparing a single Foundry module that contains all of The MAD Cartographer assets currently located on pCloud, so that these can quickly be added to your game scenes.

Going Live

We've just pushed the Foundry updates containing these fixes for almost all of our content, with several of the standalone 5e adventure modules containing prefab elements following in the next couple of days.

Given a conversion of this scale, it's inevitable that there will be a couple of small bugs or overlooked elements. Please let us know about those over on the Discord in the technical support forum so Harrison can get right on fixing them!

We'll be back tomorrow with more Frozen 2 maps!

Until then...

Keep Rollin' those 20's, folks!
Harrison, Alex, & Team MAD

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