To chime in on this, token ownership would be a massive step forward. Prevent players from moving any token they want so they can only move “their” token. When players connect, the DM could assign that player a token and they can only move it.
I like the idea of showing how far you’re dragging a token, that would be better than counting squares.
Unfortunately, token ownership has mostly been rejected as a feature. The good seems very marginal, and the bad is significant.
The only good thing I can think of that would come out of it is preventing players from moving tokens they’re not supposed to be moving. But I’ve never heard reports of players moving tokens they’re not supposed to be moving.
On the bad… Assigning ownership would be another thing the GM would have to do before they can start up their game. Shmeppy tries very hard to be as quick and fluid to use as possible. There’d also need to be a new interface GMs would have to learn for assigning tokens, a way to signify who own each token, etc; this’d be quite a bit more UI.
I was thinking something like you right click (or shift+alt+right click, whatever isn’t taken) and assign the token to a user that’s logged in. But I’m just the user not the guy having to figure out how to make that work! Plus I just started using it and haven’t run a game with it yet, so you’ve got the knowledge from past user experience that I don’t.
I see that this discussion is from a year ago, but I just recently started using shmeppy during quarantine and have found it to be an incredible tool!
Could the site automatically assign each player an individual token as soon as they join the map?
The player tokens could exist in the panel on the right, next to each players name. Then, both the player and the gm would be able to pull their token out of the panel and place it where it needs to start, or move it where it needs to go. This also would open up opportunities for players to have a more individualized experience; the chance to choose the color of their token, name themselves, essentially create their own character.
Giving players a little more control while simultaneously limiting any potential shenanigans, might be a good way to make players feel more invested in shmeppy as a mapping tool like so many gms are?
This is a fantastic tool and I’m so glad my friend showed it to me!
When playing at a normal table you don’t really have control over where tokens move, sometimes on really large maps I ask players to move tokens for me anyway. I believe if your players are willfully moving tokens they shouldn’t be moving there is a problem with the player- not Shmeppy.
It seems like conversation this has been picked up again, and I just want to chime in an put a voice in for NOT making this a feature. It would add overhead to both the DM, and to development for VERY minimal gain. As has been pointed out, in a real tabletop game there is nothing to stop players from just randomly moving minis, but that isn’t a problem at any table I’ve ever been at. Don’t spend time on this feature.