In-person table: screen, waiting room and split tables

Playing in person with the table on a screen, split table and waiting room.

If you play with people in the same room, the table can put the map, the turns and the rolls on a TV or a second monitor while you run the game from your phone or laptop. This guide also covers three related parts of the table: the split table (groups in different places), the waiting room for people asking for a seat, and parallel tables.

Where it is

All three live in the dock and only the person running the table sees them: Play in person for the screen, Split table to look at and move the groups, and Waiting room for the waiting room. The screen is also in the "⋯ The table" menu, under the name Play in person.

Requirements and permissions

• The screen is a feature of the Legend plan, like the broadcast. Without it the entry shows a padlock and a notice.
• It is separate from Broadcast for OBS: what you choose for the screen does not change what goes out to OBS, and the other way round.

Setting up a screen

1. Open Play in person. At the top you will see No screen; once the screen connects it says Screen connected.
2. Under Open screen choose What it shows: Tactical map, Ambience or Everything. With a map, also choose its Screen camera.
3. Choose How it is placed: Upright, Rotate 180° or Table seen from above.
4. Open it on this device with Open on this device: a new window opens; move it to the screen and press F. Or on another device with On another device: scan the QR code or use Copy link. The code is drawn in your browser and the link is not sent to any outside service.
5. As soon as it connects, the screen sets itself up with the game. It reconnects by itself if the network drops, and Turn the screen off closes its channel.

Several screens at once

You can open as many as you like; each link is the next free screen and carries its number. A typical setup:

• An upright screen with Ambience: scene, whatever you show the table and the text on the screen. No map or turns.
• A flat screen with Tactical map, to move minis on top, set to Table seen from above: the turn strip also appears on the far side so it can be read from both sides of the table.
• Your laptop, with the table of whoever runs the game.

What you show with Show goes to the ambience screens; if none is connected, it goes to all of them. Screens panel, in the same window, opens the Screens panel: a live thumbnail of each screen, with its controls.

The screens panel

For each connected screen you can:

• Rename it (Rename) or press Identify to find out which one it is.
• Send it a scene, a map or a handout: drag it onto its thumbnail, or use Send to this screen.
• Lower its Curtain (and Raise curtain), or Clear what was sent.
• Pop it out to another window with Pop out to a window.
• Change its Layout: move the pieces (map, image, title, turns, portrait, time, weather), apply a saved layout or save your own, and decide what is overlaid (alerts, rolls, chat).
• Adjust the turn order on that screen: style (centred bar or list), how creatures are named and the values next to the name. Only the values that combat lets players see are shown.

The screen remote

With the screen connected, the panel shows the Screen remote with a row of actions: Next turn, Zoom out, Zoom in, Show and Pause (a full-screen break; the same button turns into Resume). Below are dropdowns:

• Centre on: goes to a character or creature.
• Send to: with two or more map screens, which one zoom and centre apply to (or All).
• Vision of: All players or one character; the screen draws their fog and sight.
• Show the place of and Show the table of: show another group's place, or the parallel table you choose.

Zooming and centring switch that screen's camera to I drive it: it shows what you look at on your map. To make it follow the turn again or show the whole map, change its camera in the screens list. The fog zones you prepared are revealed from the same remote; see Fog, vision and light.

What the screen shows

• The three possible cameras of a map screen: Follows the turn, Whole map or I drive it.
• The turn strip: the round, whose turn it is and who is next.
• The map through a player's eyes: fog, hidden things and secret rolls never show.
• Under What it shows, the roll size (small, medium or large) and a text on the screen that you write, with its own size.

Rolls clear themselves, and turn and critical alerts queue up, always on top of whatever you present. The screen shows no cursor, menus or app notices.

Real scale and minis

Under Screen settings you pick the screen (if there are several) and adjust:

Minis with camera

With the real scale set, a camera (your phone's or a webcam) can see where your minis are and move the token by itself. You manage it from Minis with camera, in the remote.

1. Print rings: tick the tokens, check each one's ring number, choose Transparent or Paper and press Generate PDF. Print it unscaled (100 %). On dark maps use paper.
2. Cut out the ring and make the centre hole; the mini's base sits in it. The little arrow marks the front.
3. Turn camera on: the browser asks for permission. Place it so it sees the whole screen, without glare. If the image comes out mirrored, turn on Flip the image (mirror) and calibrate again.
4. Calibrate: the screen draws four marks in the corners, the camera finds them and they clear by themselves.
5. When a mini stays still on another square, its token moves as if you had dragged it. The remote shows how many minis it sees; you can Pause or Turn the camera off.

Note. Video never leaves the device: it is analysed there and only the confirmed square is sent. "The ring's rotation turns the token" is off by default.

Split table

When the group splits into different places (some in the tavern, some in the crypt), Split table opens a menu with:

• Look at a place: view each place without actually moving. A place where someone has asked to go says so on its row.
• Gather everyone here: brings everyone to the place you are looking at.
• «Take those here to…»: moves whoever is here to another map.
• Back to where the table is: you go back to looking where the table is.

If a player has asked to go to a scene, the request appears at the top ("Ana wants to go to the tavern") with two options: Take there (sets that scene for that person alone; everyone else stays put) and Not now. With no split table and no requests, the dock says the table is not split.

Waiting room

Waiting room opens a window with the common room and one channel for each person who has asked for a seat in the campaign. You accept or decline each candidate by hand with the buttons on their row; you can message them first with Message. There is also a voice call, Session zero voice, to talk with whoever is waiting. The person waiting sees their own room: the common one and their private channel with the person running the game, with no access to anything else in the campaign.

Parallel tables

With several tables open in the campaign, "⋯ The table" offers Tables: Open another table, «Move to…» (with the chosen player tokens) and Close this table. At the top the Table selector appears so you can change which one you are looking at. Each GM runs one at a time, and the screen can show the table you choose. The full detail is in Parallel tables.

Common problems

"The screen never connects." Open Play in person from the phone or computer at the table; the screen connects by itself. The Legend plan is required.

"Zoom in does nothing." The zoom is locked by the real scale: turn off Lock zoom.

"The camera cannot find the rings." Check that it sees the whole screen, without glare, and try Flip the image (mirror). If it has moved, use Calibrate again.

"I cannot move a player to another table." Select their tokens on the map first; without them the option is greyed out.

See also

• Broadcast for OBS
• Parallel tables
• Show, bring and the curtain
• Fog, vision and light

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