Dynamic lighting that makes the dark matter
FreeA dungeon is only scary if you can't see the end of the corridor. RollQuest's dynamic lighting puts real light sources on the map: torches, lanterns, glowing runes, a cold blue from the crypt door. Walls block it. Doors block it until they open. And the whole system is on the Free plan.
Dynamic lighting for a virtual tabletop, without the setup tax
On some platforms dynamic lighting is a paid add-on, on others it's a settings screen with forty options. Here it's a panel. Open Lighting, click where the light goes, set a colour and a radius. Done.
Lights have a bright radius and a dim radius, like the rules expect. They can flicker, so a torch looks like a torch. They can be any colour. A red glow from a forge, green from a fungal cave, a tight white beam for a bullseye lantern.
Torches that follow the party
Attach a light to a token and it moves with the token. The fighter carries the torch, the party walks behind her, and the pool of light slides down the corridor as she goes. Drop the torch (detach the light) and it stays on the floor where she left it.
On the Free plan, lights attach to tokens. On Starter and Pro, "Follow Token" for lights is the full version: every light source you own can be pinned to any token and follows it through scene changes.
How it works in RollQuest
Draw walls in Wall Mode (or use a map builder map, which has them already). Add doors in Door Mode. Open the Lighting panel, place a few lights, set the scene's ambient darkness. That's the whole setup.
During play, open a door and light spills through. Close it and the room goes dark again. Lights can be toggled from the GM's side at any moment, so blowing out the candles is one click.
Darkvision, and seeing in bands
A token's sight isn't one number. It's an ordered list of bands, each with an outer distance and a visual mode, which is how you model darkvision honestly:
0–30 ft Full Colour · 30–120 ft Greyscale · beyond 120 ft not visible
That's a dwarf. The near range looks normal, the middle range is the washed-out grey that darkvision is actually described as, and past that there is nothing. A human gets one band and a hard edge. Something with blindsight gets a short band that doesn't care what the lighting is doing.
Bands can differ by lighting state, so the same token can see one way in a lit room and another way in darkness, without you swapping anything over mid-session. Leave a token unconfigured and it keeps the sensible default from its senses.
The words on screen name what you'll see - Full Colour, Greyscale, not visible - rather than any one game system's vocabulary, so the same control works whatever you're running.
Scene weather
Rain over the market square. Snow drifting across the pass. Weather is a layer over the scene that moves on its own, and it's available on Starter and Pro. Turn it on for the outdoor scenes and off for the crypt.
There are presets rather than a pile of sliders: rain, snow, storm clouds, thunderstorm, firestorm and sandstorm. The storms flash - lightning across the board - and you pick which sound the thunder uses, so the flash and the crack land together instead of a rumble arriving whenever the audio felt like it. Intensity is yours to set, so drizzle and downpour are the same preset at different strengths.
Works with
Fog of war uses the same walls, so a lit room behind a closed door stays hidden until the door opens.
Audio has door-triggered sounds, so the creak and the light arrive together.
Frequently asked questions
Does RollQuest support darkvision?
Yes. A token's vision is set as bands - for example full colour to 30 ft, greyscale to 120 ft, nothing beyond - and those bands can change with the lighting state.
Is dynamic lighting free in RollQuest?
Yes. Lights, walls, doors and token-attached lights are all on the Free plan. Scene weather and the full Follow Token option for lights are on Starter and Pro.
Do walls block light and vision?
Yes, both. One set of walls handles fog of war and lighting together.
Can I have different coloured lights?
Yes. Any colour, with separate bright and dim radius, and optional flicker.
Can players carry a light?
Yes. Attach a light to a player's token and it moves with them. Players can't edit the light unless the GM gives them the ability.
Does lighting slow the game down?
It's calculated on each player's device and synced through the same channel as token moves. Scenes with a few dozen lights run fine in a browser.