Scene vistas
A vista is a picture you show your players instead of the map, such as the castle on the ridge as the party rides up, while you carry on working on the map.
Not every moment needs a grid. The party crests a hill and sees the city below, steps into a candlelit chapel, or watches a storm roll in over the sea. Playing those moments by description alone, with no tokens to move, is called theatre of the mind, and a vista gives it a picture. Each scene can hold several vistas, and you switch between them, and back to the map, whenever you like. A vista isn't a phase: a phase is another version of the map, with the same grid and tokens, while a vista can be any picture at all and covers the board completely.
Only the Game Master (GM), the person who created the game, can add and show vistas.
Plan: vistas are on every plan. A vista's sound comes from the Sound Library, which is on Starter and Pro.
Add a vista
A vista's picture comes from the game's Background Library, where your maps are kept. It can be any size and shape: unlike a phase, it doesn't have to match the map.
Upload the picture to the Background Library if it isn't there yet. See Upload a map.
Open the menu (three lines, top left) and click Scenes. The Vistas row, under the Phases strip, belongs to the scene that's on.
Click + Add vista. The vista list opens under the row.
Click Choose a picture…, pick the picture, and click + Add vista under it.
+ Add vista, pick the castle, then + Add vista again. The frozen castle joins the Vistas row.
The new vista is named after its file, tidied up: the-frozen-castle.jpg becomes The frozen castle. Adding a vista doesn't show it: players keep seeing the map until you click it.
Choose a picture… lists the pictures in the Background Library with their sizes, and you can type to search them. Animated maps (videos) aren't offered. A scene can have up to 12 vistas.
You can only add vistas to the scene that's on, so switch to a scene to set up its vistas. If the scene you're on has no map yet, the first picture you upload becomes its map: for a scene that's all vistas, upload the pictures while you're on another scene.
Show a vista
Click a vista in the Vistas row (hover: Show “The frozen castle” to players instead of the map). It fades in over the map on every player's screen.
Your players see the picture fill their screen, fitted so none of it is cut off, over a blurred, darker copy of itself that fills the gaps. Their menus, chat, dice and character sheets stay on top and keep working. They don't see the vista's name, and they can't close it.
You keep seeing the map. A bar at the top of your screen says Players see: with the vista's name, the vista has a ring round it in the row, and the row's heading changes to Players see “The frozen castle”. To see the picture yourself, click Preview on the bar.
Click another vista to change the picture: the new one fades in over the old, say the same road by night. Clicking the vista that's already showing does nothing, so a stray click can't take it away.
Work on the map behind the picture
While a vista is showing, the map is yours to work on. Move enemies into place, light the torches, or click a phase to change the map: players keep looking at the picture. The Phases strip says hidden from players until Back to map and its phases dim, to remind you.
A phase you click behind a vista still plays its sound, and switches the music if it has a playlist, so pick a phase with No sound when the change should be a surprise.
Back to map
Click Back to map, on the bar at the top or beside the Vistas heading. The picture fades away and players see the map as you left it, on whichever phase you last clicked. Back to map is the only way to take a vista off your players' screens, apart from removing the vista.
The bar at the top, button by button
The bar shows only on your screen, and only while a vista is showing. While the game is paused, it sits under the PAUSED banner.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Players see: and the vista's name | What your players are looking at now. A vista with no name shows as a vista. |
| Preview | Shows the picture on your own screen as well, with a coloured outline round the edge so you know it's a preview. It reads Hide preview while it's on: click it again, or press Esc, to go back to the map. Nothing changes for your players. |
| Change vista | Opens the scene's vistas under the bar as small pictures, three to a row, with the one showing outlined. Click one to show it. Esc or a click elsewhere closes the list. |
| Back to map | Takes the vista away and shows players the map. |
With no vistas to list, Change vista says Add vistas in the Scenes panel. If the list can't be loaded, it says Could not load this scene's vistas.
The Vistas row, part by part
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Vistas and pictures shown instead of the map | The row's heading. While a vista is showing, the second part reads Players see “…” with the vista's name. |
| Vista chip | A small picture and the vista's name. Click it to show the vista to your players. The one showing has a ring round it; clicking it again does nothing. |
| + Add vista (dashed) | Opens the vista list, ready to add one. |
| Manage… | Opens the vista list, or folds it away. Shows once the scene has a vista. |
| Back to map | Shows players the map again. It's there only while a vista is showing. |
| hidden from players until Back to map | Shows beside the Phases heading while a vista is showing, and the phases dim: a phase you click changes the map behind the picture. |
The vista list, row by row
Manage… opens a row for each vista under the Vistas row; click it again to fold them away. + Add vista opens the same list. Only one list is open at a time: opening the vista list closes the phase list, and the other way round. None of a row's boxes has a label: from left to right they are the picture, the name, the transition, the time and the sound.
| Control | What it does | Default and limits |
|---|---|---|
| Name box | The vista's name, on its chip and on your bar. Players don't see it. Saved when you click away or press Enter. An empty name shows as Vista on its chip. | The picture's file name, tidied up; up to 80 characters |
| Transition | How the vista arrives: fade (it fades in over the map, or over the vista before it) or cut (it appears at once). It sets the way in only: Back to map always fades out over 0.8 seconds. | fade |
| Time | How long the fade takes, in milliseconds (1000 is a second). cut ignores it. | 800; 0 to 10000 |
| Sound | A sound to play for everyone as the vista appears. Type in Search sounds… to find one by name or tag; No sound plays nothing. It stops when you show another vista or click Back to map. Players who join later don't hear it. | No sound |
| X (hover: Remove vista) | Removes the vista after Remove vista asks you to confirm. If it's showing, players go straight back to the map. Its picture stays in the Background Library. | |
| Choose a picture… and + Add vista | Adds a vista (see Add a vista). + Add vista is greyed out until you pick a picture. | 12 vistas per scene |
You can't change a vista's picture: remove the vista and add the new picture instead. You can't reorder vistas: they stay in the order you added them. Adding a thirteenth shows A scene can have at most 12 vistas.
When you switch scenes
Each scene remembers whether it was on a vista. If you switch away while one is showing, the scene stays on it, and the next time you switch back, players arrive on the picture, with no fade, and never glimpse the map. Their loading screen waits a few seconds for the picture to load. To open a scene on an establishing shot, the first view of a new place, show its vista before you leave the scene or before your players join.
Players who join or reload while a vista is showing see it straight away, without its sound.
Good to know
- A vista isn't a pause. The game carries on behind it: fog, lights, tokens, battles and the world clock work as usual, and players can still roll dice and chat.
- If you pause the game with a pause screen, the pause screen covers the vista, and the vista's still there when you unpause. See Pause the game.
- Duplicate Scene doesn't copy a scene's vistas. Scene packs and content packs keep them.
- Players who turn on reduced motion on their device see vistas change at once, without the fade.
Related
Phases · Scenes · Pause the game · Upload a map · Sounds on doors, phases and weather