Fog of War

Roll20 Plus and Pro subscribers have access to Dynamic Lighting which offers a hands-off solution to tracking player vision and line of sight on a page

The Fog of War feature allows you to manually reveal areas of the map to your players. This is useful if you have a group exploring areas that should remain hidden or otherwise would not be visible. This includes rooms on a map, secrets on a game board, etc. Fog of War is controlled solely by the GM Game Master and remains unchanged regardless of players, light sources, or lines of sight. Fog of War hides everything on the tabletop, such as tokens, maps, text, and drawings. The only exception is that players can see and control their own tokens to avoid losing them under the fog.

Enabling Fog of War

By default, a page has its Fog of War feature disabled.  If you want to enable the feature follow these steps:

1. Go to the Page Toolbar
2. Click the gear icon for the page you wish to add Fog of War. The gear icon will open that page's Page Settings window. 
3. Check the toggle next to Fog of War: Enabled to activate the Fog of War.
4. Click on the OK button at the bottom of the Page Settings window to save your changes. If you have the edited page currently loaded on the Tabletop, your view of the Tabletop will now appear slightly darker.

Once enabled, the entire page will be hidden behind the Fog of War and ready for the GM to start revealing areas of the map for the players.

In the Page Settings window you can also adjust the GM Opacity slider. This controls how dark the Fog of War and Dynamic Lighting appears to the GM. Slide it to the right for greater opacity. At 100%, the Fog of War will be completely opaque to the GM just as it would be for your players.

Note: Plus & Pro users can still find the opacity slider in the Dynamic Lighting tab.

Revealing/Hiding Areas

If you click on the Eye icon of the Tabletop Toolbar, Fog of War tools a sub-menu of will be pulled up. These tools help you to reveal or hide areas of the page.

Reveal Areas Tool

When using Reveal Areas, left-click and drag on the Tabletop to draw out a rectangle. You will see a yellow selection area appear under your mouse cursor as you do this. When you release the mouse button, the area you have drawn will be revealed. To reveal further parts of the page, just repeat this process.

Polygon Reveal Tool

The Polygon Reveal tool functions the same way one would use the Polygon/Line Tool from the Drawing menu of the Tabletop Toolbar.

1. Click on the Tabletop where you want the vertices of the polygon to be drawn and a yellow selection area will start taking shape. 
2. Hold down the Shift key while drawing to conform the polygon vertices to the grid. Pressing CTRL/Option + Z while drawing will undo the last vertex step you made.
3. Either hit the Escape key, right-click, or left-click close to the starting point of the polygon to finish the shape.

Hide Areas Tool

If you have made a mistake or need to cover a previously revealed area of the page with fog, choose the Hide Areas sub-tool. This tool operated exactly like the Reveal Areas sub-tool. Each rectangular area you click and drag over the Tabletop will cover that area with fog again.

Reset Fog

If you would like to cover the Tabletop completely up with Fog again, select the Reset Fog sub-tool. A confirmation window will appear first to ensure that this action isn't made by mistake.

Preview Your Work

To view Fog of War from the player's side, go to the Settings Tab and click "Re-Join as Player." To return to GM Mode, go back to the Settings Tab and click "Re-Join as GM."